A third, and final, service pack for Office 2007 will ship later this month. Mainstream support for Office 2007 is slated to end in April 2012.

According to Microsoft, Win8 is designed to use memory more efficiently than earlier versions of Windows. Lower memory use can lengthen battery life on mobile machines.

2011 was supposed to be the year the virtual desktop replaced the old "PC-on-a-desk". Or was that 2010? Analysts have predicted the coming change more than once.

October 11 is Patch Tuesday. This month Microsoft will release eight security updates to fix 23 vulnerabilities in Windows, IE, and other products.

The European Commission has granted approval to the merger of Skype and Microsoft. The deal has already received approval in the U.S. Still considering the deal are Russia, the Ukraine, Serbia, and Taiwan.

It sounds like Microsoft may be taking the place of a cable company. Content won’t be free, if you want to watch HBO on your Xbox, you need to subscribe to HBO and, of course, own an Xbox.

While many people claim to be interested in buying a Windows-based tablet, PC makers haven’t been rushing any to market. Early next year, maybe, Dell will release a Win8 tablet.

Some at Microsoft are interested in buying Yahoo!. Others don’t like the idea. Yahoo! turned down an earlier offer from Microsoft, now they may not be so fussy.

The CR48 was designed to run Google’s Chrome operating system, not Win8, so this may not be something you want to try. However, if you like hacking boxes, this could actually work. Or you might brick your machine.

WebECS launched Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync across all of their Windows hosting accounts. WebECS is offering Exchange ActiveSync as an optional add-on for SmarterMail mailboxes.